Why MERS is Not the New SARS

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The new virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)
has been compared to that of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) — the viruses belong to the same family, and are
particularly deadly to infected people — however, the two
conditions have some important differences, a new study says.

While MERS appears to be more deadly in those it infects, it also
seems to be less contagious than SARS, the researchers said.

The evidence so far also suggests it's unlikely that MERS will
follow a similar path to SARS, the researchers said.

Both
MERS and SARS belong to a family of viruses called
coronaviruses. SARS was first reported in Asia in 2002, and in
less than a year, infected more than 8,000 people around the
world, about 10 percent of whom died.
MERS first appeared in Saudi Arabia in September last year,
and has since infected 90 people and caused 45 deaths.

The majority of infections have been in Saudi Arabia, although
some infected people lived in or traveled to Jordan, Qatar and
the United Arab Emirates. Among people admitted to the hospital
with MERS, the most common symptoms were fever (98 percent),
chills (87 percent), cough (83 percent) and shortness of breath
(72 percent). Some patients also reported gastrointestinal
symptoms, including diarrhea and vomiting.

Unlike SARS, which tended to affect younger and healthier people,
MERS appears to mainly infect people with underlying chronic
conditions. Ninety-six percent of people with MERS in the study
had a chronic condition such as diabetes,
high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease.

In those it does infect, MERS progresses rapidly, leading to
death a week earlier, on average, compared with SARS, the
researchers said. Sixty percent of people with chronic illnesses
who contracted MERS died, compared with just 1 percent of
people with chronic illnesses who contracted SARS.

The high death rate seen with MERS (50 percent) may be because
researchers are, so far, only picking up the very severe cases of
illness. Many more people may have caught MERS, but do not show
symptoms, the researchers said.

The researchers said rapid and accurate tests to diagnose the
disease are urgently needed. And more studies are needed to
determine the scope of the outbreak, as well as risk factors for
infection, and factors that might predict which patients are most
likely to die from the infection, the researchers said.

The study is published today (July 26) in the journal Lancet
Infectious Diseases.